Contents ( 66)
- Cover
- Books by Valerie Fraser Luesse
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Map of Florida
- one
- two
- three
- four
- five
- six
- seven
- eight
- nine
- ten
- eleven
- twelve
- thirteen
- fourteen
- fifteen
- sixteen
- seventeen
- eighteen
- nineteen
- twenty
- twenty-one
- twenty-two
- twenty-three
- twenty-four
- twenty-five
- twenty-six
- twenty-seven
- twenty-eight
- twenty-nine
- thirty
- thirty-one
- thirty-two
- thirty-three
- thirty-four
- thirty-five
- thirty-six
- thirty-seven
- thirty-eight
- thirty-nine
- forty
- forty-one
- forty-two
- forty-three
- forty-four
- forty-five
- forty-six
- forty-seven
- forty-eight
- forty-nine
- fifty
- fifty-one
- Epilogue
- Keep Reading for a Preview of Valerie Luesse’s Next Book!
- Prologue
- one
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Back Ads
- Back Cover
“You better be,” Winston chimed in. “Whole family knows he’s always wanted to take over everything. Hey, head for that fork over there.”
Peyton and Prentiss rowed toward a favorite spot on the Skidaway, one where the fish were generally biting this time of the morning. Peyton was thinking about the day his grandfather announced that he was retiring and would be handing the reins of his estate to his eldest son. Granddaddy Cabot had made a big production of it, gathering the whole clan and having a shrimp boil for the occasion. All the adults had circled around the big mahogany desk in the library to witness his grandfather signing the papers, rolling them into a scroll, and handing them to Peyton’s father like a runner passing the baton. Then they all had a champagne toast.
He tried to remember his dad that day, during the gathering his aunts sarcastically called The Coronation. How had his father looked? What had he said? Was he happy to be taking over the estate? Somehow Peyton didn’t think so, but the details wouldn’t come to him.
As for Granddaddy Cabot, he and Peyton had always had a strange relationship. On the one hand, the elder Cabot had made it clear that Marshall was his favorite child and Peyton, by extension, his favorite grandchild. Whenever there was a prized shotgun to be passed down or extra spending money slipped into a palm, these tokens of love, or at least favored status, always went to Peyton. And yet he had never had a real conversation with his grandfather.
“Let’s try casting right here.” Winston pulled him out of a swirl of memory and back into the johnboat he had been absently rowing.
The three boys took up their fishing rods and cast their lines. They drifted along, none of them feeling the need to talk as they watched for signs of movement on the surface of the river. As usual, Winston was the first to grow impatient, reeling in his line to try another spot.
“Peyton,” he said, “I need to tell you something. Uncle Julian was over at the house last night. Heard him tell Mama, like he was all concerned, ‘Baby sister, we need to get Marshall moved to Milledgeville where they can do something about his situation. I think we’re the only ones who can see the truth.’ Can you believe that? ‘Baby sister,’ my hind leg. I can’t believe he called her that, like they were all close and everything.”
“Wait—back up,” Peyton said. “Are you sure he said Milledgeville? Nothing there but the asylum.”
“I know.”
“But why would Uncle Julian want to put Daddy there?”
Winston stood up in the boat and cast his line near some stumps protruding from the water. “I’ll give you two guesses and the first one don’t count. He told Mama he’d already started the paperwork to have Uncle Marshall declared mentally unfit to run the estate.”
Peyton gave his reel a few turns, adjusting his line as he thought it over. “He can’t send Daddy to Milledgeville unless Mama agrees to it, and she never will.”